More and more surgical procedures are performed percutaneously by the use of catheter delivered devices. The main advantages are faster patient recoveries and lower costs to the medical system. Some tissues, such as muscular tissue or arterial walls, do not seal well and are sometimes subject to blood pressure, thereby requiring an immediate haemostatic seal to close an opening in the tissue. Conventional solutions typically rely on various forms of plugs, such as expanding foam plugs, and expanding metal plugs to close the opening.
One disadvantage of plugs is that in order to form a good seal they apply forces to the opening that tend to cause the opening to become larger, rather than the more natural way which is to contract the opening in order to promote healing. A conventional device that functions by contracting the opening is the Star Closure device sold by Abbott Vascular (www.abbottvasculardevices.com). This closure device is however only suitable for thin walled body tissues as it relies on folding the tissue. When sealing larger openings in thicker tissue the gripping points employed to pull the tissue inwards have to be spread over an area significantly larger than the opening size, similar to what is done in traditional suturing. Attaching the closure device in close proximity to the opening does not allow sufficient forces to be applied, therefore creating a marginal closure.
An additional shortcoming of prior art solutions for closing openings in thicker muscular tissue such as heart wall tissue is that the inner surfaces of the heart are irregular in form. When inserting a closure device into an inner surface of the heart, the reliability of the closure is heavily dependent on the angle of the puncture relative to the angle of the inner heart surface.
An additional shortcoming of closure devices employing piercing gripping elements includes occurrences of tissue tearing which can negatively impact the reliability and efficacy of these devices.
There is a need for improved closure systems and methods for closing an opening to an anatomical cavity, the closure systems being deliverable by a catheter to an inside tissue surface of an anatomical cavity.
There is a need for improved closure systems and methods for closing an opening to an anatomical cavity, the closure systems being capable of adapting to differences in the angle of the interior surface within the anatomical cavity relative to an orientation of the opening.
There is a need for improved closure systems and methods for closing an opening to an anatomical cavity, the closure systems being capable of distributing the closure forces to an interior surface of the anatomical cavity to reduce occurrences of localized tissue tearing.